Untold Facts

Sheikh Hasina Afraid of BNP and the Legacy of Ziaur Rahman?

As always, a number of interesting and thought provoking articles and letters covering the current political situation in the country were noticed in the columns of the News From Bangladesh (NFB). I would particularly like refer to the ones written by Zoghlul Husain, Jalal Uddin Khan and Shimul Chowdhury published recently. The writers deserve appreciation for articulating the terrible fiasco Bangladesh in today, as well as warning the public what disaster loomed ahead if the situation was allowed to continue. Mr. Khan suggested some home improvement measures for the BNP, and they need careful consideration by the party if it wants to survive and contribute meaningfully to national politics and development, as well as to carry the legacy of President Ziaur Rhaman.

The Sheikh Hasina administration had been doing everything possible to eliminate the name of Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman, the valiant freedom fighter and the most successful Bangladesh president to date, from the country’s history. His only ‘crime’ was he had the ‘audacity’ to declare the independence of Bangladesh from the Chittagong Kalurghat Betar station on March 27, 1971 when political leaders failed to do so in time. The Awami League (AL) had to seek a verdict from a willing court to ‘punish’ Zia. One can fool one person all the time or some people sometime but not all people all the time. One cannot manufacture or dictate history; it will speak itself.

It looks like the public is paying the price for the ‘forced’ and ‘farcical’ elections on December 29, 2008 after which the AL led ‘mohajote’ was installed to power. Many nationalist observers and analysts have since been warning that Bangladesh would soon be sucked into the Indian hegemony, conforming to Nehru’s India Doctrine, which envisaged an Indian supremacy in South and Southeast Asia. The AL, its sponsored media and the pro-Indian lobbyists have engaged themselves in allaying such fears, some for protection of their crowns while others for cash rewards. National interests have hardly been of any concern to them. These elements find Indian ‘great friendship’ in the stoppage of waters at Farrakha, Tipaimukh and many other similar deadly contraptions! So what if our 52 joint rivers dry out at time of need and people keep crying Allah Megh De, Pani De in desperation? (Please read the article “India’s Dream, Bangladesh’s Disaster” by John Vidal published in NFB on July 16, 2010.) They feel nothing wrong at the regular BSF target shootings at Bangladeshis across the border, nor the Indian farmers encroaching inside our land. They do not care if we lose the South Talpatti or our maritime outlet to the sea. They think Bangladesh is out for sale and can be leased out for money, so let India use our ports and land routes for whatever purpose. They do not reason why Asian Highway had to enter Bangladesh from one side of India and exit to India again, reducing Bangladesh to a hapless transit point only. We need no military control in tribal areas in Chittagong Hill Tracts, so that India-trained miscreants and secessionists can keep it continually unstable. It is of no consequence to them if Indian goods and culture flood Bangladesh markets, even though Bangladesh can not export their goods to India for various ‘legal’ and ‘procedural’ reasons. The Hasina administration seems to move along the blue-print it was charted as a condition of its installation to authority.

The nation could not yet know the real story behind the February 25/26 BDR carnage last year, the worst since March 25/26, 1971, even though multiple connections with ruling elites were revealed. Fifty-seven senior officers, including the Director General of BDR, were massacred and their bodies brutally mutilated. Ladies and adult girls were not spared of the savagery during that period hitherto unheard in Bangladesh. Nobody would ever know why dozens of material witnesses were eliminated in the name of ‘heart attacks’ or ‘suicides’ while in custody. Perhaps as follow up of a greater plan, some of the brightest officers of the military were systematically sacked or retired and replaced with awamized officers. Yet, Sheikh Hasina does not seem to have faith in her politicized military. Otherwise, why would she engage Indian commandoes for her security and safety, if rumors were to be believed!

General Moin driven Caretaker Government instituted thousands of cases of corruption, graft and murder against political leaders, mostly belonging to Awami League and BNP, including the two former lady prime ministers. People had seen and experienced the highhandedness of those leaders over the past few decades and had no doubt about the correctness of the charges. Yet we found them coming out of the jails as puritans, and today sitting in the august national parliament and cabinet deciding the fate of Bangladesh and its dismayed sufferers. What an irony! Upon saddling in power, the Awami League took quick steps to withdraw thousands of cases against its men, thanks to an awamized and ever willing judiciary. At the same time, cases against the opposition BNP members are being strengthened with new cases being filed almost daily, particularly against the Zia family members, again thanks to a henpecked and spineless Duduk!

The current suppression and oppression to dissenting media reminds us of Sheikh Mujib’s emergency period in 1974 when all but four government-controlled newspapers were closed. The way Daily Amar Desh and its editor Mahmudur Rahman was thrashed, defying even court orders, can only be possible in a mythical ‘Mogher Mulluk’.

Awami League should in fact be thankful to the opposition BNP for not calling for any Hartal over the past 18 months. It should recall when it was in opposition in 1991-1996 and 2001-2006, how many days did it allow the BNP to run without a Hartal? Yet, it went wild to note the success of Hartal on June 27, 2010 and sent out its official and unofficial enforcement machineries to create trouble. The result was the arrest and persecution of thousands of opposition leaders and workers. The Deputy Home Minister publicly said that the opposition leaders should now ‘save their skins.’ Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, a disabled freedom fighter, the longest serving Foreign Secretary and an Ambassador to the US, was not spared of the harassment and continued to remain in custody.

Few disagree with a need of trial and punishment for the 1971 war criminals. In fact, the public in general and the freedom fighters in particular wonder why it had not taken place over the past 4 decades. However, that should not give a wholesale license to the AL to arrest, torture and harass the Islamic minded leaders on flimsy charges. Many observers suspect that it is in fact a deliberate effort by AL to keep a fictitious ‘Al-Quida/Taliban Connection’ alive in Bangladesh to solicit and maintain Indo-US-Israeli support. (Please read a letter by Shimul Chowdhury in NFB of July 16, 2010 titled “It is About Anything but the 1971 Liberation War.”)

Do all these mean that Sheikh Hasina is afraid of the BNP, the Jamaat-e-Islam and the legacy of Ziaur Rahman, or the public at large?

Author: Obaid Chowdhury
NY, USA

Self-defeating attitude of the Taliban

Among many stories that come out of Afghanistan I read one which is remarkably similar to the experience of the people of Swat and Waziristan. In the village of Hiratian in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, locals found the body of eight-year-old Dilawar hanging from a tree of a small fruit farm. The Taliban fighters had accused the boy of spying for the American forces; they kidnapped him, strung him up and left his body to sway in the wind for hours for all to see.

The murder was horrifying, yet few villagers come to the defence of anyone charged with spying for the hated Americans. But slowly, the details of the story emerged. The Taliban in the area had been collecting donations — money, food or weapons. They demanded money or a weapon from Mullah Qudoos, the boy’s father. Qudoos, poor and jobless, had neither. So the insurgents took his son instead. He was too young to be suicide bomber. So, they killed him to strike awe and set an example. When villagers learned the truth they erupted in fury. They openly vowed to fight the Taliban. Some called the Taliban “our oppressors.” Others swore never to help them again.

Hiratian lies in an area that is outside the government’s authority and has been under nearly continuous Taliban control for years. The political bankruptcy of direct Taliban rule in these areas has succeeded in doing what the Americans have not: turn the population against them. While the residents of Hiratian have not yet expressed their sentiment through action, villagers in other areas have. The Taliban exerted complete rule over large parts of Gizab district, in Dai Kundi province of central Afghanistan for years, until many villagers started refusing to cooperate with them earlier this year. All these areas have had few foreign troops. The insurgents imposed their harsh rule and the population suffered. Even after the large influx of troops in South Afghanistan over the past few years, the dynamic persisted: the Taliban were so powerful that it obviated the need to win over the population.

On the other hand, in those areas where the insurgency’s growth roughly coincided with or followed the arrival of the foreign forces — in the provinces near Kabul, for example — the Taliban have been more sophisticated. They have had to compete with the foreigners for the population’s allegiance, and in the process had to administer their rule with a softer touch. In such places, troop presence actually makes the insurgents more popular in local eyes. The conclusion is obvious. Without US troops in the area, the Taliban have no legitimacy.

It is a trend that belies conventional wisdom. It is hard to believe that increased effort to wage a war for ‘hearts and minds’, which at the heart of the COIN strategy, makes the Taliban popular. General Petraeus may well be smart enough to see that and move away from the present strategy of ‘surge’ which places reliance on a large U.S. military footprint. But the US has failed to rally Pashtun villagers to its side or to break the will of the resistance. For this reason many of these Pashtuns call for a negotiated ceasefire. They want to end the war their own way and rightly maintain that only they can deal with the Taliban and on their own terms. As the Taliban in Hiratian (as well as Swat and Waziristan) have shown that the Taliban can be their own worst enemy.

Negotiating between the populace and the resistance in Afghanistan would be protracted if the Americans continue to maintain a heavy military presence. I believe that a ‘threat’ of an early withdrawal would expedite matters. Instead of saying that the Americans ‘could stay long after the July next year deadline’ they should be saying that ‘withdrawal could begin’ as soon as all segments of populace and the resistance can come together to negotiate a settlement.

Many American strategists have already expressed the opinion that it is the future and fate of nuclear Pakistan, not the future and fate of Afghanistan, which should be the focus of US policy. The access of Afghanistan to the outside world would be through Pakistan. The alternative of Shia Iran, and Central Asian Republics (which are themselves land-locked) is not viable. It is the common interest of the USA and Pakistan-Afghanistan that Pakistan and Afghanistan should be friends – like twins conjoined at the hip, as President Karzai put it. Why the three of them are not pursuing what is their obvious common interest? It is because there is another group of three – India, Israel and the Neo-con America (supported by much of the Republican Party) – who would like the USA to not only stay longer in Afghanistan but also make use of the opportunity to strike at Pakistan and Iran.

The Republican Party would like President Obama to be a ‘one term President’ failing to get re-elected and being held responsible for the ‘defeats’. The Zionist lobby in America would like the destruction of the military of two more countries – Pakistan and Iran – to ‘make Israel more secure’. India eagerly wants to split Pakistan into several countries like it did in 1971 but that is possible only if it can win a victory in a conventional war in which the USA neutralises the nuclear deterrent of Pakistan. The ruling coalition in Pakistan is of parties that opposed the creation of Pakistan or have since emerged with or adopted that agenda. The USA may be persuaded to opt for the course being recommended by India, Israel and Neocon America merely because the ruling coalition in Pakistan is eager to oblige without questioning what may be done to Pakistan by ‘the three’. All eyes in Pakistan are on the military.

The Army is headed by a wise General. But he is due to retire in November this year. It has been the practice to grant one year extension to every COAS in Pakistan. But Zardari-Geelani may decide against it because he cannot be relied upon to refuse to obey the Supreme Court (SC) if he is asked to impose its judgement. Such a situation may come about well before November if the SC decided that the President cannot hold the office of PPP Chairman. Nobody in Pakistan’s Government is giving much thought to the dwindling prospects of the Taliban and Pakistan’s role in: 1) honourable exit with continued friendly US engagement with Afghanistan; 2) a durable peace settlement in Afghanistan between the populace and the resistance. I believe that vague objectives of the USA and Pakistan have fudged the issues which precluded emergence of wise and viable common objectives. But USA and Pakistan-Afghanistan do have common interests; they can surely agree on common objectives.

The Taliban did rule Afghanistan for a time but their government was recognised only by three countries – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It was because of perceived illegitimacy of their rule that it was hard for Pakistan to stand by them when they were invaded in 2001. They are now being offered negotiations and peace that the Afghan people desperately want and deserve. If the Taliban refuse to make a deal with the USA, there would be no recognition of their rule even in the remote eventuality of the American leaving Afghanistan like they left Viet Nam. Pakistan is sincere in its support of Afghans; it has made much sacrifice for their sake against Soviet occupation and now American occupation. The Muslim World has a stake in the Afghan leaders acting sensibly to guard the national interests. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have some influence over the Taliban. They can and they must act to bring about a peace settlement. ++

Author: Brig. Gen. Usman Khalid
The writer is the Secretary General of Rifah Party of Pakistan

Is PM Sheikh Hasina in control of her affairs?

A careful look at the political state of affairs in Bangladesh will substantiate an argument that the Sheikh Hasina regime is a continuation of the military-backed interim government that had ruled the country for about two years before her party came to power. Sheikh Hasina and many of her party people were incarcerated and tortured during those two years, and she claimed that there had been an attempt on her life through mixing poison with her food. Her statement in this regard can be interpreted in two ways: 1. She made a false statement to collect public sympathy, which explains why she is not taking any action against those who wanted to kill her; 2. Her statement is true, but she is unable to take any action, as she is not in command of the affairs of Bangladesh.

Instead of branding our Prime Minster as a liar, I find it morally more comfortable to believe the second interpretation. Sheikh Hasina receives dictation about how to run the country and about who to punish; and according to that dictation, the misdeeds of the military-backed interim regime are forgiven. The primary target is those people who constitute the biggest obstacle to the realization of a political and economic hegemony of a regional power, and it is that regional power that is virtually at the helm of the country. It is that neighboring country of ours that wants to exploit Bangladesh in every way possible, which BNP and Jamaat refuse to tolerate.This is the reason for the arrests of Mahmudur Rahman, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Maulana Saidee and Ali Ahsan Mujahid.

Author: Shimul Chaudhury